


There's No Such Thing As Avengers' Game Night

by chaletian



Series: the space between Natasha and Bruce is a neutral zone armed with mistrust and cynicism [3]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-08
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Apparently</i>, she’s making the others sad by not spending time with them. <i>Apparently</i>, it’s only with the greatest effort from Tony himself that Steve hasn’t kidnapped her in an effort to secure her company. <i>Apparently</i>, Clint is nearly in tears at her continued intransigence. Natasha wonders, not for the first time, if Stark is on drugs. Clever, undetectable dugs, but drugs nonetheless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No Such Thing As Avengers' Game Night

There’s no such thing as the Avengers movie night. Or the Avengers karaoke night. Or the Avengers anything. The people who made up the Avengers Initiative have scattered after the Loki incident. Thor has returned to Asgard. Captain America is roaming the highways and byways of the USA. Natasha and Clint are back doing their usual missions with SHIELD (even if those missions seem to involve messengering documents between SHIELD HQ and Stark Tower more frequently than before).

If Tony Stark decides that a year spent in India with no sport to watch but cricket has made Bruce Banner practically un-American, and that he must be re-indoctrinated with the glories of the American pantheon of sporting achievement, that’s between the two of them. Natasha doesn’t see that it’s got anything to do with her.

“Hey, Nat,” says Clint, one evening, slinging his bow onto his back. “You coming over to Stark’s tonight?”

Natasha frowns. “Why would I do that?”

“To watch the game. You didn’t see the email?”

Natasha shrugs. After a link to something that ended up being a porno version of their recent battle, featuring a preternaturally hung Iron Man fucking Captain America in mid air (which looked more uncomfortable than anything else), Natasha now filters all emails from Tony Stark into her trash folder. It’s better that way.

She doesn’t go to Stark Tower with Clint. She’s a professional. She’s an assassin. She doesn’t hang out with her co-workers and watch TV and drink beer (the least incriminating pursuits she imagines Stark and Banner and Clint undertaking).

oOo

Steve Rogers gets back from roaming. He looks more content, which Natasha is glad about. She values predictability in people who aren’t her. Fury pitches the idea of working for SHIELD, and it looks like Rogers will go for it. Natasha can see both the advantages and disadvantages, and hopes that Fury will chose Rogers’ missions carefully. She thinks about some of the things she’s done in the name of law and order, and doesn’t think that decent, upstanding Captain America would deal with them very well.

“Captain Rogers, would you like to come watch the baseball with us?” says Coulson, and Rogers agrees and leaves with Coulson and Clint before Natasha can even wonder when Coulson of all people ended up hanging out at Stark Tower in his off time. Also, what favours Clint had to promise to get him to spend time with Tony Stark.

oOo

Two weeks later, Thor appears. Partly to give them news of Loki’s punishment by the Asgardians (unpleasant but, Natasha feels, entirely deserved), and, reading between the lines, partly to get some with his girlfriend. SHIELD scuttlebutt says they spent the evening watching the basketball at Tony Stark’s.

oOo

The next morning, Natasha’s email has been hacked. All the emails from Stark have been returned to her inbox, and at the top is one that says **Agent Romanoff, please read me**. Apparently, she’s making the others sad by not spending time with them. _Apparently_ , it’s only with the greatest effort from Tony himself that Steve hasn’t kidnapped her in an effort to secure her company. _Apparently_ , Clint is nearly in tears at her continued intransigence. Natasha wonders, not for the first time, if Stark is on drugs. Clever, undetectable dugs, but drugs nonetheless.

“Hacking my email is not appropriate behaviour,” she says coolly to Stark the next time Fury sends her over (she’s an _assassin_ , when did she get demoted to messenger?).

“You’re making everyone sad, Agent Romanoff,” says Stark. “Do you want everyone to be sad? Do you hate joy, Romanoff?” He hasn’t taken Fury’s folder off her, because _Tony Stark doesn’t like people handing him things_ , and Natasha thinks he will fucking take it off her if she has to punch him in the face, incapacitate him, and stuff it between his teeth.

It’s possible some of this shows in her face, because Stark takes the folder, flips it open, and starts making derisive noises.

Natasha thinks this is getting out of control. Natasha thinks maybe she’s getting out of control.

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll come over next time.”

“Go Avengers game night!” says Stark distractedly.

There’s no such thing as Avengers game night, Natasha thinks.

oOo

Stark’s ridiculous living room is full of the people who make up the Avengers Initiative. There is a game on the ridiculously enormous flatscreen TV. Undeniably, this is Avengers game night. Pepper Potts offers Natasha a drink. She is wearing denim cut-offs and has bare feet and doesn’t look at all like Pepper Potts.

“We’re so glad you came,” says Pepper, and Natasha nods.

“Thank you.”

She sits there with a beer, observing the others. This is not what she’s used to. She doesn’t work with people like this. Her interactions with SHIELD staff have been measured and controlled and kept to working hours, except for Clint, and he’s her partner, it’s different.

The umpire makes a decision apparently nobody likes, and there’s uproar, and Natasha’s suddenly on alert, because Banner is as uproarious as the rest, gesticulating wildly, and – for some reason – catching Stark in a headlock, which is both out-of-character (as far as Natasha can tell), and deeply worrying. Once she’s had the thought – and she kicks herself for relaxing and not thinking about it from the start – Natasha can’t keep her attention off Banner. She doesn’t relax again for the whole evening.

Next time, she doesn’t accept a drink. She’s still discreet, but she’s better armed than she was before. She doesn’t focus on the game, or the others (do people always talk this much when watching sport?); just on Banner. He’s easily excitable in this environment, and every time he jumps up, she tenses, ready.

Next time, she chooses her seat carefully, and doesn’t take her eyes off him, and when she’s moving through the doorway to leave at the end, a hand pulls her off balance and into a room. It’s Stark (of course), and she takes great delight in the fact that he’s already face down on the carpet, arms twisted behind him, because no-one grabs at her like that.

“Ow, Jesus, Romanoff!” he says (she thinks; it’s muffled). “I just wanted to talk to you, you psycho.”

“Psych cleared me years ago,” she replies calmly. “Next time, try saying, Romanoff, can I talk to you.”

“I was _trying_ ,” says Stark, levering himself up, “to be subtle.”

”I can understand that would be hard for you,” she says.

“Look, whatever,” says Stark, unexpectedly sober. “You don’t like me, I get it. Most people don’t. Something about being intimidated by my genius and my charm and my billions.”

“No,” says Natasha, pretending to consider, “no, that’s not it.”

Stark waves a hand, impatiently. “ _Romanoff_. This isn’t about me. You need to lay off Bruce.”

This, she doesn’t expect. “Banner? What are you talking about?”

“You know what I mean. All the staring and looming, and waiting for him to turn into the not-so-jolly green giant. These nights are supposed to be fun. They’re supposed to let us unwind in our own freakish company, so for a few hours we don’t worry about the crap we deal with. Fuck, even Coulson stops threatening to tase me when the game’s on. And, by the way, him and Barton? Who knew?”

“Everyone,” says Natasha. “And Banner’s a liability, Stark. I know you don’t want t—”

“I’m not an idiot,” says Stark. “I know the risks. But I don’t really think a baseball match is going to fill him with uncontrollable rage, do you?”

The thing is, asked point blank, she doesn’t.

“OK,” says Natasha. “Fine.”

She stops going to Stark’s for game night. He’s right, it’s not fair to Banner. She not insensitive, she knows that the other guy is a bigger burden than Banner can bear sometimes.

Also, all this socialisation is making her twitchy.

oOo

For a couple of weeks, it feels like everything’s finally getting back to normal. Fury disappears to an undisclosed location, which means they’re not being used as messengers any more, and Natasha, Clint and Coulson are assigned to a mission in Venezuela, which is hot and unpleasant and deeply satisfying, and Natasha feels like she’s back in control of her life. Then Clint opens his mouth.

“Bruce says you can come back to game night.”

“Barton…” says Coulson warningly, and already Natasha doesn’t like where this is going.

“What? Look, he says, he knows he makes you uncomfortable, and it’s not fair that you should have to miss out, and so he’s going to stay away.”

Natasha closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She can hear Clint and Coulson arguing but she tries not to pay too much attention on principle.

“I don’t want to go to game night,” she says eventually. “It’s pretty simple.”

“But it’s team night,” protests Clint, and she can see he really means it, and this is getting ridiculous.

“We’re not a team,” she snaps. “We fought one battle together, and that was that.”

The jet is mostly silent the rest of the way home.

oOo

Bruce Banner is waiting for her when she walks out of one of SHIELD’s secret entrances. He unpeels himself from the wall, and gives a wave.

“Hey, Agent Romanoff.”

“Is this about game night?” she asks brusquely, walking past, “because I really don’t care.”

“But everyone else does,” says Banner, keeping pace with her. “It’s up to you if you come or not, but I just wanted you to know you didn’t have to factor me into that decision.”

“We’re not a team,” says Natasha, for what feels like the fifty-third time.

Banner’s smile is slow and a little rueful. “Of course we are. Who else would have us?”

“I’m not going to game night,” says Natasha. “I’m not interested. It’s nothing to do with you. You didn’t need to come down here.”

Banner looks at her for a moment, and nods. “OK,” he says. She can tell he thinks she’s lying, but she’s not. She’s not.

oOo

She stops deleting Stark’s emails, and tells herself it’s to monitor the rest of the team. She doesn’t like surprises.

FIN


End file.
